Katrina inspires jobs website

Benjamin Grove

Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2005 | 10:54 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- The travel industry on Thursday plans to launch a job bank website for workers displaced by Hurricane Katrina, at www.katrinajobs.org, the Travel Industry Association of America announced today.

The job bank has been designed to accept resumes from job seekers, as well as post job openings at tourism and travel companies around the nation.

The association expects thousands of job postings, and has already collected about 1,000, including 400 or so from the Venetian Hotel Casino.

Displaced workers from the Gulf region are already aching to return, so it's not clear how many hurricane victims ultimately would head to Nevada for jobs or how long they would stay, association leaders said at a Washington news conference today.

"Our sense is that people want to be home (in the Gulf)," said Jonathan Tisch, chairman and CEO of Loews Hotels, and an association leader. "So we look at this as temporary alternatives that would allow people to have that income, to get their children in school."

The tourism industry is committed to rebuilding itself in the affected Gulf areas, Tisch said.

Tisch said he expects a rush of "patriotic tourism" when the Gulf begins to rebuild itself -- travelers who make the trip specifically to help pump money back into the economy. That kind of tourism was seen in New York after Sept. 11, he said.

Katrina crippled the Gulf Coast gaming industry. Mississippi's 13 Gulf Coast casinos were destroyed. An estimated 14,000 to 17,000 workers were left jobless in that state. Four casinos in Louisiana were damaged.

The travel industry in the affected areas of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama account for 260,000 travel and hospitality industry-related jobs, the association said. Last year, tourists spent $10 billion in the affected areas, roughly $27.6 million a day, the association reported.

The tax revenue generated by travel-related businesses is just a slice of the tax money that state and local governments in the region are not collecting. Video poker machines alone provide $4.6 million a month in Louisiana state tax revenue, the Associated Press reported.

In a separate effort, the Katrina relief fund created by the American Gaming Association a few days after the hurricane to help displaced workers has netted nearly $500,000, mostly from gaming companies, spokeswoman Holly Thomsen said.